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Kathryn Tewson

@kathryntewson.bsky.social

36K followers 2.5K following 31K posts

Good in a crisis and at no other time First initial last name at gmail dot com Signal:@KathrynTewson.06

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · Mar 12

New policy: people who come into my mentions to scold me for how I engage with bad-faith users are getting blocked. Y’all clearly are looking for a different online experience than the one I provide, so I’ll just help you along to it.

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 8h

I’m not sure what the point you’re making is. If it’s “the scene from the godfather probably didn’t happen,” then i am quite happy to concede that the movie was fiction.

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 8h

Who claimed that, and where?

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

What do you mean by “taking credit for”?

Is it cultural theft to speak a different language?

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

It is true, however, that the names as delivered on the shipping manifest were officially recorded at Ellis Island.

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

But Israelis do?

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

oh well if someone on Twitter who did genealogy said so, then I guess we can ignore the national archives

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

Does everyone who moves to another country, learns the language, and likes the food commit cultural theft?

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

How does that follow? Are Arab-Americans who eat pizza thieves of culture?

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

Where's the dividing line between assimilation and cultural theft?

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

. . . okay?

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 11h

That's an application for citizenship, not a verification of entry.

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

It seems like you have taken a highly defensible claim that any name changes to immigrants were not typically the result of intentional acts or negligence on the part of individuals working at Ellis Island specifically, and broadened it out beyond reckoning.

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

Someone's name, hypothetically, is 李美平. How would it have been recorded on the shipping manifest, do you think? How about Глафира Васильевич, or Αρτέμης Παττακός, or 권해옥?

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

Yeah. The shipping manifests were required by law to be filled out in English, which presents a bit of a difficulty when the name is in a non-Roman alphabet (or not in an alphabet at all).

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

Their status as someone whose entry into the country had occurred after inspection and recording.

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

So you're no longer arguing that the shipping manifests were unofficial documents of no import whatsoever?

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

So what happens if you stick by your name as you know it, and then your immigration status needs to be verified and your name doesn't appear on the shipping manifest?

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

education.myheritage.com/article/was-... And so does this one!

Back in the golden age of immigration to the U.S., immigration was a fluid process. You bought a ticket with your own funds or were sent one by a relative already in the U.S. You provided travel documents of some kind (varied by country) to get that ticket. Remember that travel documents were written in a variety of alphabets and languages that had to be translated and transliterated so that ship personnel could prepare the passenger manifest. Changes could have occurred at this point, but this was before the ship sailed.

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

www.hollander-waas.com/blog/ellis-i...

This article also confirms that many peoples' names changed during the immigration process.

Sometimes, this name change happened before even boarding the ship to America; if one had a brother, husband, or uncle in America who had already gone from Rabinowitz to Robins (as David Rabinowitz of New York did in 1921), the immigrant would often adopt this new, shortened name before even boarding the ship. This is why you often see a husband immigrate under one surname, and his wife arrive a year later with their children under the new, shortened name.

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-...

This article confirms that name changes could happen, even if they arose from errors overseas.

Name changes “could happen, but they are not as likely as people have been led to believe,” he says.

Ellis Island inspectors were not responsible for recording immigrants’ names. Instead, any error likely happened overseas.

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

journals.ala.org/index.php/dt... This article confirms that the shipping manifests were official immigration documents, required by law at the port of entry, and that the captain was subject to heavy fines and penalties if he didn't provide one.

Beginning on that date (i.e., when the federal government assumed control over immigration), ship captains were required to report a list of all passengers brought to US shores from foreign countries; information required included name, sex, age, and occupation.6 Several decades later, in 1893 (just after Ellis Island opened), the requirements for manifests became even more specific: the shipping company clerks were required to obtain contact information and to ask each passenger a series of questions about their health and political views. Furthermore, the clerks who created the manifests were told that “immigrants shall be listed in convenient groups . . . and no [list] shall contain more than 30 names.”7 These instructions are precise and clear, and they are not mere suggestions—they are published in the U.S. Statutes at Large, which contain federal laws as they are passed by Congress. Any captain who didn’t turn over a list of names when he dropped off his passengers faced a displeased federal official and some steep fines.

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

I'll happily accept the answer of "The misrecording of names happened somewhere else, and by some other person, than at Ellis Island." But the idea that nobody's name was ever altered in practical effect by the immigration process is bonkers.

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

You literally said the shipping manifest was "not an official document." bsky.app/profile/roby...

Robyn Pennacchia @robynelyse.bsky.social · 13h

They looked at the shipping manifest. Which was not an official document, so if they spelled her name "Katherine," it would not have mattered IN THE SLIGHTEST and she could go back to spelling it "Kathryn" the next day, possibly without even knowing how it was spelled on the manifest.

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Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

But if they didn't, and they needed their immigration status verified, they could have been in for a spot of bother.

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 12h

For starters, when you claimed that a document with "Required by the regulations of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor of the United States under Act of Congress" written across the top was not an official document.

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